State Of The Union Shocker

Bush’s Address To Be Simulcast In English

President Hopes To Reach Broader Audience, Aides Say

For the first time since he was elected president of the United States, George W. Bush’s State of the Union address tonight will be simulcast in English, the White House confirmed.

With the public unenthusiastic about the president’s plan to send a “surge” of troops to Baghdad, the decision to simulcast the speech in English was widely seen as an attempt by Mr. Bush to make an appeal to a broader audience.

“The majority of people in this country are English speaking, and quite frankly, we can’t afford to ignore them any longer,” White House spokesperson Tony Snow said. “Hopefully, by doing the English simulcast, we’ll be reaching out to a lot of those folks.”

Once the decision was made earlier in the month to launch the historic first English simulcast of a speech by President Bush, then began the hard work of translating the text of the address from Mr. Bush’s language into English.

Davis Logsdon, a professor of linguistics at the University of Minnesota, was one of several scholars approached to do the translation who ultimately quit in frustration.

“The problem is that the language the president speaks, by most measures, is not a language at all,” Professor Logsdon said.

In his speech, President Bush is expected to downplay setbacks in Iraq and will instead highlight the accomplishments of his six years in office, including his historic decision to cancel the agreement between nouns and verbs.

Elsewhere, marathon runners and long-distance cyclists could be putting their lives at risk, according to a new study funded by the Society of American Sofa Manufacturers.

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